Philosophy of business development

I really love my job. What I do is make partnerships between the company I work for (ex Firefox, now Hearsay Social) and all the other relevant companies out there.

It is cool because to do this job well (as I hope I do!) you need to know what is important to your company, but more importantly, you need to know what is important to the companies around you.

I treat my partners as customers and I do my best to ensure they get top-notch customer service. I found this really nice quote from the VP of Business Development at HootSuite that sums up my views pretty well.

Here he’s talking about why HootSuite survived when a bunch of other Twitter clients got shut down. His company didn’t just mooch off the success of Twitter, they knew how to create innovative ways to drive value back to them.

Smart!

HootSuite’s customers include PepsiCo Inc. (PEP) and Sony Music, and the company is helping Twitter by getting more brands to spend ad dollars there, said Gregory Gunn, vice president of business development.

“You have to make sure you’re putting money in their pocket and understand what’s of value to them,” Gunn said.